Last month’s “Awe Dropping” event saw the announcement of new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods. But based on a flurry of new regulatory leaks, it looks like Apple isn’t ready to wrap up for the year just yet.
As spotted by MacRumors, the FCC has published documents relating to multiple unreleased Apple devices. This is a routine and necessary step before electronic products can be released to the public, and generally indicates that a launch is imminent.
What we don’t know for sure is which products these documents relate to; the FCC refers to them by model numbers rather than the branding they will carry when they go on sale. The initially spotted model numbers are A3357, A3358, A3359, A3360, A3361, A3362, and A3434, and based on context clues the first six are almost certainly various configurations of the M5 iPad Pro. The last one, A3434, is probably a new M5 MacBook Pro.
In both cases, we have other reasons to believe those devices are close to launch. A Russian YouTuber posted a video this week purporting to show an unboxing of the M5 iPad Pro, and it looks legit. And on the MacBook Pro front, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman claimed last weekend that the M5 model is “nearing mass production.”
More surprisingly, the FCC has also released documents that clearly relate to a new Vision Pro model: it’s referred to as a “Head Mounted Device” and illustrated with an image that leaves little doubt. This one appears to be an accidental leak, since the files contain a confidentiality request from Apple, and therefore may relate to a launch that’s further off.
At any rate, the new Vision Pro probably won’t be a huge change from its predecessor. Apple is believed to be working on a cheaper and lighter version of the device, and another that’s specifically designed to be tethered to a Mac. But both of these won’t be here until 2027 or thereabouts. Anything that arrives this year or next year will be a far more cautious tweak to the formula.
Whether these devices will make it into stores before the end of 2025 remains to be seen; before the FCC leak it was believed the new MacBook Pro was equally likely to appear in late 2025 or early 2026. But this latest evidence adds fuel to speculation that iPads and MacBooks will be announced at a second Apple fall 2025 event, likely in October. The second-gen Vision Pro may take longer, but it has been more than two years since the first model was announced, and Apple could yet pull a surprise in the remaining months of the year.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.